


no grave can hold my body down

by pr1nc3ssp34ch (dallisons)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison is also in France, F/M, Isaac is in France, Memory Loss, Mythology - Freeform, Phoenixes, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dallisons/pseuds/pr1nc3ssp34ch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Allison?" he asks, blinking from in front of the warm lights of inside. There's a wine bottle hanging carelessly between his fingertips.</p><p>"I must be," she replies, feeling the warmth of rightness she's gotten accustomed to. <i>Allison.</i> It fits her so well, like the land, like this house. Like Isaac. </p><p>"I've dreamed about you naked before," he admits, "but you never had wings."</p>
            </blockquote>





	no grave can hold my body down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiny_white_hats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_white_hats/gifts).



> This was originally a bonus gift for [Emma](http://allisaacs.tumblr.com), but I ran out of time in the exchange, so now it's just a thing for Emma because I love her! It works either way. I wanted to write more but I thought it seemed better to end ambiguously, so... I hope you like it anyway.
> 
> Backstory spoilers at the end notes, song title is from Hozier's Work Song.

Her feet are numb.

 

It's cold, cold and wet and musty and dark, and there's a weight on her chest so heavy she can feel her wings being crushed. They feel new on her back, but she doesn't remember ever being without them. She doesn't remember anything but the cold, and the wet, and the dark. There's dirt in her nose and above her eyelids and it's everywhere, like swimming through muck and debris, and she can't breathe. If she doesn't get out, she won't  _breathe._

 

For reasons she doesn't remember, dying seems awful, horrifying and silent and  _final,_ and she claws with sharp fingertips against the dirt. There is a wealth of strength in her limbs guiding her up, further and further and faster, but her fastest doesn't seem to be enough. For every dirty clump she pushes away, there are roots blocking her path, tiny seeds and wet grains of mush that won't stop invading her lungs. She's choking on them, on all of them, and for some strange reason it feels like she's choking on life. Like if she wants to survive, she can't have it easy. 

 

She doesn't know her name, but she knows that life being hard makes her  _angry._ Her fury fuels her strength, and her hands brush something new. Emptiness. Air. She fights against the weight of her wings and the weight on her soul and the dirt in her mouth and finally, finally she's there, coughing and vomiting up dirt as fast as she can. Her wings struggle to pull from the ground, but they're strong, stronger than her arms, and break free with less hassle. Her legs are still sunken beneath the grass, but she coughs and hacks until she's breathing free, gagging at the taste in her mouth. She tastes like death, and she knows it.

 

Pushing on the earth beneath her, she heaves her legs from beneath it, pushing through like she's springing to life. Maybe somehow she is. But for now, all she knows is the grass around her is drying up and her skin feels hot and the area around her is glowing.  _Why_ is the earth glowing?

 

 _Oh,_ she realizes.  _It's not the earth. It's me._ Her skin glows, warm like the fireplace when it starts to die, and she feels as though she's swallowed the sun. The night is dark around her, wide open and full of sparse trees and cleanly-kept grass, but here it could be noon for all she glows. She feels made of fireflies, and when she turns to look at a wing, it glows with fiery colors too. 

 

Maybe she's crawled up from hell itself, but she knows one thing; she can't go back.

 

Standing is an adventure. She knows how to do it, but her legs won't cooperate. Her muscles are sore and entirely useless, and it frustrates her completely. Her memory is gone but her emotions are built into things she can't explain, and she  _knows_ her body should work better than this. She should be strong, and capable, not wobbling and unable to kneel. It may take minutes or hours -- no, not hours, it's still too dark for that. Time isn't very important to her, though, not when her legs refuse to participate. She aches, but she tries, she tries and tries and finally she manages to stay upright.

 

Her chest is heaving, her legs feel like rubber and hot coals, but she's  _standing._ She wants to whoop in triumph, but instinct tells her there may be people nearby. She can't get caught. She's trespassing. 

 

Nothing on this earth belongs to her. 

 

Her walk is faltering and stumbling, but it seems the more she uses it, the more her body remembers what her mind knows she can accomplish. Her wings drag against the ground, and she needs to use new muscles to hold them up, muscles she doesn't  _know_ but needs to learn. It's a struggle to carry all the weight, but the more she perseveres, the easier it becomes. There's a house in the distance, almost a manor, and a light on in several downstairs windows. She pulls herself towards it. Whatever's in there, she knows it can help her.

 

She doesn't know where she came from, but she knows she was sent to a place where she could survive. All she has to do is pick up and remember the pieces.

 

It's harder than it looks, walking. Not that she's seen someone walk before. But things seem to come back in flickering, flash-bulb moments -- she sees, she feels, and she remembers. She starts walking and feels as though she's been doing it her whole life, though she hasn't been alive very long. She stumbles and remembers how to catch herself, laughs and remembers that the sound was familiar to her, once. She loves to laugh. The movement feels stale on her too-new face, but she feels as though she's slid into a well worn jacket every time her lips curve up. 

 

Everything hurts, but somehow it's easier to forget that the longer she moves forward. It feels good to breathe, and to move, to walk and jog and jump. Her body feels ill-used and stiff, and the more she stretches it out, relearning how to use it, the better it feels. Even her wings become easier to bear, though they still feel heavy and awkward, the only piece of her that doesn't fit. She looks up and sees the stars and realizes she has something in common with them, now. If there was a road nearby, she'd be glowing just as bright to the cars passing through.

 

She doesn't know who she is, but she knows she loves the smell of grass. She knows she likes the teasing bites of wind and the way it feels to be happy. She knows she is herself, and she sinks into her body as she realizes, finally, what home feels like. 

 

The large, stately home looms over her. Not quite a mansion but certainly not an ordinary house. The grass is clipped even on every inch of the lawn, and the ivy climbing the walls is kept clipped and tasteful. It feels like no one has lived there for a while, not really. Just stopping through. But this is hers. She'll live here. She can't imagine being anywhere else.

 

She recognizes the front walkway, realizes she should go to the door. It seems silly to have forgotten that. Doors. If you'd asked a minute ago, she would've said the whole world was open to her. Doorways shut things in, trap them down. 

 

After a moment, she recognizes her emotion as anger. This is hers. She feels this place, this land, in her bones and in her skin. Her hands glow bright and begin to spark, flames licking up her fingertips but leaving them wholly unharmed. The sight is strange enough for her to forget what she was mad about. It looks orangey and delicious in a way she can't quite figure out, and it makes her grin, makes her laugh. Everything is rosy once more.

 

The flames go with her anger, but the memory of them remains. It's the first one she struggles to hold onto, since waking. She won't want to forget that. Looking through the window on the door, she can see that the hall is dark, but there are lights on down the way. She looks around, trying to find a way to get the attention of the inhabitants inside, and presses the doorbell, remembering its function. 

 

A bright, rustic bell chime sounds, startling her. She moves back. A thump comes from inside, rapid footsteps following in its wake. Whoever was in there must be... anxious. Excited? She can't tell.

 

For the first time, she shivers.

 

The door opens.

 

It's a moment of anticipation, both of them staring at each other. Isaac's eyes go comically wide, and she realizes she knows him. Isaac. Warmth blooms in her stomach and travels through her chest. There is an ache in her that realizes it was waiting for this moment. She missed him, somehow. She was worried.

 

"Allison?" he asks, blinking from in front of the warm lights of inside. There's a wine bottle hanging carelessly between his fingertips.

 

"I must be," she replies, feeling the warmth of rightness she's gotten accustomed to. _Allison._ It fits her so well, like the land, like this house. Like Isaac.

 

"I've dreamed about you naked before," he admits, "but you never had wings."

 

Allison laughs, and launches herself forward, light and free and hopeful. The wine bottle crashes onto the stone, clinking but not breaking, and rolls onto the grass. Neither of them care. Isaac's arms are warm around her waist, and he presses his nose to her skin, like he's reminding himself this is real. "I missed you," she says, her mouth on the cold shell of his ear. "Will you tell me why?"

 

His arms tighten further, pulling her inside. Allison barely remembers to pull her wings in. "I'll tell you anything you want," he promises. "Just don't disappear in the morning."

 

"Is that what I normally do?" she asks, and he laughs, roughly, like he hasn't in a while.

 

"Absolutely not," he tells her, voice cracking.

 

Allison repeats _no leaving_ in her head a good twenty times to make sure she won't forget. 

 

This place is hers, after all. And so is everything in it.

**Author's Note:**

> Allison wakes up on the original Argent land, going back to her ancestry. She was reborn as a phoenix, which is dropped in a bit, but not really distinct within the fic. She was reborn not from her own ashes but the ashes of her ancestors in their unmarked graves. I had an idea that it would be cool of the Argent land went back too many generations to count, and somewhere in their history, they were more supernatural than they like to admit. This is the result of that. Allison remembers as she goes, kind of like the whole world is jogging her memory. Chris left Isaac in the empty Argent house, which belongs to Chris now that his father is presumed dead. The Argents are a huge family but not a close one, so while Allison does have other family in France, they don't live in the main Argent home because that's traditionally reserved for the matriarch and her immediate family alone. They're big on tradition. They also don't exactly know that Isaac is shacking up there, for obvious reasons. He's been drinking a lot of old wine from the Argent cellar and trying to learn French, mostly.


End file.
